You Can't Make “Fish Climb Trees”

Book excerpt: In our rapidly changing global environment where learning methods, styles and access vary dramatically it is increasingly necessary to stimulate conversation around drastically revolutionizing education. In You Can’t Make a Fish Climb Trees: Overcoming Educational Malpractice through Authentic Learning author and scholar Lawrence Muganga advocates for educational transformation and exposes our archaic education systems modeled for nineteenth-century Europe, which has allowed governments and administrators to structure and deliver education as if it were an assembly line. The current model largely discounts students’ individual differences and natural abilities impacting their ability to transition from the classroom into the workforce. While he focuses on the need for more dynamic education models in Sub-Saharan Africa, Muganga establishes applications for the presence of Authentic Learning—where teaching happens in a student-centered environment filled with real-world applications—throughout the global community. Drawing from the research of educational experts worldwide, he advocates for the kind of revolutionized education model that would see students’ individuality used to empower them so that they can navigate their future and the workforce successfully.